Often in the technical service industry, a service technician will need to gain access to a computer of a customer. Often the computer is not connected to a network capable of allowing the technician to access to the computer. It may not even be connected to any network. Examples of solutions are to have the customer supply his or her access credentials such as user identification (ID) and password to the technician and allow the customer to have administrative privileges, have a database of access credentials available to the technician, and have a common administrator password known by the technician.
In many cases, none of these solutions provide adequate security. It may not be consistent with security policies to allow the customer to have administrative privileges giving them the ability to reconfigure their computers. A database with computer credentials may not be secure and may allow an individual access to many more computer systems than intended. A common administrator password may also not be secure but become known by non-authorized persons or grant access to more computers than intended.